In the opinion of many scholars this is among the oldest, most typical
and most interesting of ballads. It has turned up in countless versions in the
Scandinavian and Baltic countries, in Central Europe, Hungary, Rumania and
Russia, and the ballad specialist Francis J. Child considered that the best
version of all is Sicilian. It has enjoyed very wide currency in the British
Isles and also in the USA, where it has been described as “easily the
favourite of all the traditional ballads among the Negroes.”
In many versions, the story tells of a young woman captured by pirates or
brigands; father, mother, brother, sister refuse to pay ransom, but the lover
sets her free. In earlier forms of the ballad, the girl is condemned to die
for the loss of a golden ball (or golden key, either signifying the girl's
honour which, when lost, can only restored by her lover). There is a folk tale,
once well-known in England, in which a stranger gives a girl a golden ball.
If she loses it, she is to be hanged. While playing with the ball she does
lose it. At the gallows, her kindred refuse to help, but the lover recovers
the ball after terrible adventures in the house of ill-omen where it had
rolled. It seems that verses from
The Prickly Bush
(also called
The Maid Freed from the Gallows)
were sung in the course of telling the story. The losing of the golden ball
and the subsequent scene at the gallows used to form a children's game in
Lancashire in the 19th century, again accompanied by the song.
In Missouri, the song is used as part of a story of a Negro girl with a
magic golden ball that will make her white. From a similar
cante-fable, the admired Negro singer Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly)
evolved a version that became well-known after it appeared on a commercial
disc. Many layers of folklore, extending to very primitive times, may be
revealed by deep study of this ancient ballad, in which, at some stage and in
certain versions, the condemned person has changed sex and become a man who is
freed by his girlfriend.

The form of the ballad is likewise interesting. It is frequently suggested
that the ballad originated as choral dances. That is, a group formed a ring
and danced round. A member of the group sang a single line or set of lines,
and the rest came in with a refrain. It has been further suggested that
ballads were actually created in the course of this operation, with various
members of the group improvising sequences (alternated with refrain) until the
ballad story was carried to a conclusion. Now, not many ballads, as we know
them, show signs of this kind of communal creation. But
The Prickly Bush,
with its extremely simple construction, may well have come into being in such
a way. Few ballads show such clear signs of a primitive dramatic structure
as this one, though the major tune, collected by Lucy Broadwood in
Buckinghamshire, is probably fairly modern.

In 1981, The Watersons sang The Prickle-Holly Bush
with Martin Carthy leading on their album
Green Fields.
This track was reissued in 2004 on the Watersons' 4CD anthology
Mighty River of Song.
A live recording from the Triplex Theatre,
Borough of Manhattan Community College, New York City of 4 December 1987
was finally made available in 2001 on
The Carthy Chronicles.
This version has a quite unusual Watersons line-up: Lal, Norma, Mike and
Martin (who is singing lead as on the original LP version) are joined by
Mike's daughter Rachel.
A.L. Lloyd commented in the first recording's sleeve notes:

A book could be written about this song. There's a hint of the story in
Euripides' Alkestis produced in 438 BC. But of course it wasn't till many
centuries later that the tale became versified and turned into a ballad. It was
spread all over Europe in several forms. In Hungary, a yellow snake fastens
itself to a girl's breast, and neither father, mother, sister nor brother will
take it away, till up steps the bold sweetheart and does the trick. Further
east, a girl is captured by pirates, and, again, her family, one by one, refuse
to pay the ransom, but eventually the sweetheart pays it. So on through the
ages till our own day. American blacks took to the song (Lead Belly had a good
version), and after the Watts ghetto riots of 1965, a set appeared in which a
young black looter appears in court to face a heavy fine or the
“gallows twine.”
The rescuer in this case is neither father, mother nor sweetheart but a social
worker who arrives with the money just in time. As to the
“prickle-holly bush”
refrain, not all British versions carry it. The symbology-nutters find deep
meaning in it again, something to do with somebody's loss of virginity (what,
again!) but if it means anything, it is probably merely as synonym for an
awkward fix. The version here, with its fine tune, was recorded by Mike Yates
from Bill Whiting, of Longcot, Berks.

A version of The Prickle-Holly Bush, with words similar to The
Watersons' but a completely different tune, was collected by Bob Copper in
about 1954 from Fred Hewett, of Mapledurwell [pronounced 'Mapley-well'],
Hants: see Chapter 16, pp. 135-140, of
Songs and Southern Breezes
for the details; and the appendix for the words.
This recording was also included in 1998 on the Topic anthology
O'er His Grave the Grass Grew Green
(The Voice of the People Series Volume 3).

Steeleye Span recorded The Prickly Bush
in 1996 for their album
Time.
The words are the usual traditional ones and the verse melody was written by
Bob Johnson. The album notes comment:

This story is allegorical, the gold signifying the maiden's honour;
which when lost can only be restored by one person—her lover.
Gold seems from early times to have been the symbol of integrity,
appearing in Danish ballads as the virgin's insignia. So too in the
Scottish Ballad of
Tam Lin—“I
forbid you maidens all / that wear gold in your hair.”

The “prickly bush”
is familiar in English and Scottish ballads as the
symbol of unhappy love. The real question is—do we remember the lessons
learned whilst in the prickly bush?

Nic Jones sag Prickly Bush
on his anthology CD
Unearthed,
a collection of concert, club and studio performances recorded prior
to his accident 1982.

Jon Boden learnt
Prickle-Eye Bush
“around the campfire from the good people of Forest School
Camps—upholders of one of the few genuine oral singing traditions left
in England.”
In 2003, he and John Spiers recorded it for their album
Bellow
and a year later with their group Bellowhead for
E.P.onymous.
They also performed it in 2007
Live at Shepherds Bush Empire.
This video shows them at Shrewsbury Folk Festival 2008:

Jon Boden also sang
Prickle-Eye Bush
as the October 1, 2010 entry of his project
A Folk Song a Day.
And Spiers & Boden re-recorded it in 2010/11 for their CD
The Works.

Rubus sang a variant song called Golden Ball in 2008 on their CD
Nine Witch Knots.
Emily Portman commented in their liner notes:

The Golden Ball, found in George Kinloch’s
The Ballad Book is a variation of
The Maid Freed from the Gallows, also known as
Prickle Holly Bush.
In this variation, as in the chantefable of the same title found in
Joseph Jacobs’ More English Fairy Tales,
the protagonist asks her family for her golden ball, often a symbol of lost
youth. A linden tree replaces the usual gallows tree and, most striking of all,
it is transformed from a tale of true love to a celebration of super-grannies;
for it is non other than the grandmother who hobbles over the hills, clutching
the golden ball, just in time to save her granddaughter‘s neck. Kinloch gave
no melody or source for his text, but I imagine a formidable old woman in a
rocking chair impressing her grandchildren with the hangman’s marks still
on her neck.